Pandora officially arrives in Australia

Channels of Aussie tunes available

With music streaming services like Spotify, MOG, and Rara all taking off in Australia, it's no surprise that pioneer internet radio service Pandora has turned its eye to the land down under.

Officially available in Australia now, the internet streaming service has launched on both the web and with apps for iOS and Android.

The service, which has 175 million registered users in the United States, differs from the likes of Spotify by offering digital radio stations rather than an on demand selection of tracks.

Individual stations are fine-tuned by giving tracks the thumbs up or down. The service is mostly ad supported and free to use, while a premium version offers ad-free listening, a desktop app and better quality audio.

Local emphasis

Rather than a vanilla launch of the US service, Pandora has gone to the effort of creating dedicated genre stations of Australian music, including today's hits, singer-songwriter, roots and reggae dub, indigenous and classic pub rock.

Interestingly, it appears that AC/DC is actually available as an artist on Pandora, making it the only streaming service to offer the Australian rock bands music.

Pandora has also partnered with Holden to offer the streaming service direct to Holden cars, starting with the Barina CDX next year as part of the car's MyLink entertainment system.